Ukraine, Putin TV and the Big Lie

Professor Sergey Markov is that rarest of species—an English-speaking pro-Kremlin pundit. That makes him just about the only Putin backer who regularly pops up on global TV screens to explain the rationale behind seemingly irrational Russian policies. He understands the international audience and does his best to retain an air of respectability. But all of that changes when he switches to Russian.

This is how Markov justifies the Russian invasion of the Ukrainian region of Crimea in an interview with one of Russia’s most popular tabloids, Komsomolskaya Pravda: “Had Russia failed to interfere, Crimea would have come under pressure from police forces controlled by radicals and from neo-Nazi militants. Within a month, they would have established their government in Crimea and within one or two years they would have driven out almost all Russians.”

The best propaganda always has a tiny grain of truth. The vast majority of people in Crimea are ethnic Russians or Russophone Ukrainians who felt uneasy about the victory of pro-European protests in Kiev, which indeed had a very visible Ukrainian nationalist component. At the start of the protest, Independence Square in Kiev was awash with the red and black banners of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army—an anti-Soviet World War II guerrilla movement, which Russian propaganda dismisses as Nazi collaborators in a blatant oversimplification of history. Ultra-nationalists from the Right Sector coalition played a key role in the physical defense of the protests against riot police.

But all that is a far cry from Nazis taking over Kiev, an image now being stamped into the brains of Russian and East Ukrainian audiences 24 hours a day on Kremlin mouthpieces from television to newspapers, websites to official statements. Never mind that Kiev’s pro-democracy movement was overwhelmingly liberal, tolerant and, toward the end of it, increasingly Russian-speaking: to Putin’s propaganda machine, it’s all an American and European plot to destabilize Russia and turn the Russian people into slaves of the West. If Americans puzzling over what to make of Ukraine’s revolution and the crisis in Crimea could only hear what’s being said about them, they’d be shocked.

Just a sentence later in the interview, Markov concedes that the specter of a Nazi takeover is overblown. “Of course it wouldn’t take the same radical forms as in Nazi Germany. But they have a plan to turn Ukraine into Latvia or Estonia: Russians becoming second-tier citizens, Russian language banned.”

Again, a kernel of truth: After they became independent in 1991, Latvia and Estonia denied citizenship to hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians who had moved into the two Baltic countries in the Soviet years. They were issued special “non-citizen” passports, which allowed them to stay, work and own businesses, but denied voting rights. It was unjust, but it didn’t lead to people fleeing to Russia in any significant numbers. On the contrary, Baltic countries became a destination for Russian capital fleeing the corruption and graft of Moscow. The Russian language was never banned, though, and an ethnic Russian is now the mayor of Latvia’s capital, Riga. All of this is something Russians never get told by their state-controlled media.

Having explained the horrors awaiting his Russian audience, Markov reaches a crescendo. “Crimea is not their main target, they really don’t care about it,” he continues. “Their main goal is to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russia within three years, install a Kiev version of [former Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili as president and then to start a rebellion in Russia proper.”

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Any Russian reader will know that by “them,” Markov means the United States and its European allies, which becomes clear from the newspaper’s next question: “Will NATO deploy troops next to Rostov and Kursk [Russian cities near Ukrainian border]?”

“Had Putin failed to request permission [from parliament] to use force [in Ukraine], NATO would have gone much further than Rostov and Kursk—it would have been in Moscow. The goal of those who staged a coup d’etat in Kiev is to bring the likes of [Russian opposition leaders] Nemtsov and Navalny to power in Moscow. Russia would have been simply carved up,” answers Markov.

In recent years, Western strategists have shown little interest in post-Soviet politics, too busy dealing with the turmoil in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Northern Africa. But many Russians sincerely believe that all the West cares about is how to destroy their country.

Tell this to Russians brainwashed by state propaganda and they’ll be outraged: How come all the West cares about is how to destroy Russia? Libya, Egypt, Syria and now Ukraine are just preludes to the main attack—aimed like a missile at Moscow.

And Markov is fairly tame next to some of his compatriots. While Putin’s ministers are showing a degree of restraint, deputies in the State Duma, Russia’s Parliament, are letting their freak flags fly.

“So what—these Yankees, who shut their parliament when temperature drops to -15C, want to lecture us?! Dumbheads!!,” tweeted nationalist MP Ilya Drozdov, apparently referring to recent weather calamities on the East Coast. That was after he ripped off a few tweets mocking proposed new U.S. sanctions intended to punish Russia for the invasion. “Hooray!” he tweeted, hearing about the United States suspending military cooperation. “Hooray again!" he went on, hearing about the United States suspending trade talks with Russia. When word came of the Russian retaliation—the decision to re-introduce the ban on the U.S. pork—Drozdov wrote: "No entry for pigs from the USA.”

By invading Ukraine, MP Andrey Tumanov suggested in an interview with Sobesednik magazine, Russia is merely following America’s lead. “Russia should learn to be as shameless as the U.S. They live according to jungle laws. Anyone who is behaving decently and honestly they regard as a loser.”

Another MP, Vladimir Nikitin, waxed apocalyptic in an article on Ukraine for the regional website Pskovskaya Lenta. “The main battle of World War III is under way in Ukraine,” he writes. “The aggressor is Western civilization, which includes the U.S. and Europe.” After a long, unhinged rant, he concludes: “The American-style globalization has already led to a global crisis and may still lead to the demise of humanity.”

And here's the most depressing part: All of these views are completely mainstream in Russia.